We reported last month that Benny Boom (Next Day Air) had signed on to direct, and that the production needed to get started by the end of 2015, or else production company Morgan Creek would lose Tupac Shakur's music rights, which will revert back to his mother, Afeni Shakur. Principal photography got started at the end of December, with Afeni Shakur herself on board as executive producer. Afeni Shakur is a political activist and an active member of the Black Panther party, who raised her son to be an avid reader and a political mind that influenced his rap music.

Jada Pinkett Smith grew up in Baltimore, Maryland with Tupac Shakur, and they both attended high school together at the Baltimore School for the Arts. They remained good friends until the rapper/actor was killed at the age of 25 in 1996. After his death, a collection of poetry was found that was later published in the 2009 book The Rose That Grew From Concrete. One of the poems in this collection was entitled "Jada," while another called "The Tears in the Cupid's Eyes" was inspired by her.

All Eyez on Me follows Tupac Shakur's meteoric rise to fame as a rapper and actor, along with his time spent in jail and the East Coast vs. West Coast feud he became embroiled in as part of Death Row Records. Benny Boom is directing from a script by Ed Gonzalez and Jeremy Haft (Street Kings 2: Motor City). Over the several years this project was in development, other writers such as Steven Bagatourian (American Gun), Stephen J. Rivele & Christopher Wilkinson (Pawn Sacrifice) and John Singleton (Boyz N the Hood) worked on the script.